Iranian-Americans Have Reached Highest Echelons Of Tech, But Still Failed To Stop Visa Restriction

How influential is the Iranian-American community? A list just released by Persian Tech Entrepreneurs, a group of young Iranian-Americans active in technology, offers a window into how powerful this community is, especially in Silicon Valley. Many Iranian-Americans have reached the top ranks of some of the most important companies in Silicon Valley -- though their influence wasn't powerful enough to stop new visa restrictions that moved close to becoming law last week.

Iran's strong science and technology education system and connections between universities there and here served as a funnel for young people to come to the United States -- and many have migrated to Silicon Valley. They launched an effort in the past few weeks to stop a measure that was included in the 2016 budget act; the effort failed, and now it looks as if people of Iranian descent or those who have traveled to Iran and a handful of other Middle Eastern companies will face a tougher time traveling, because they will need visas to go to Europe.

As a managing partner of premier fund, Sherpa, Shervin has become an influencer in the tech world. With an increased involvement in Hyperloop and Uber's increased expansion, we're looking forward to seeing what 2016 will bring

Omid was one of Google's first employees and led Google's business operations to become the over $20B in revenues company it is now. He now serves as an advisor to many startups, including Twitter and Spotify. While also supporting non-profits that have to do with education, medicine and Iranian-American causes.

Noosheen serves as the President and cofounder of The Hand Foundation, an organization working towards preventing child sexual abuse, strengthening the global middle class and advancing the philanthropic sector.

Hadi Partovi is one of the most well respected individuals in Silicon Valley. He and his brother, Ali, started Code.org - is a non-profit dedicated to expanding access to computer science, and increasing participation by women and underrepresented students of color. "Our vision is that every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer science."

Shobeir Shobeiri, one of two cofounders of Persian Tech Entrepreneurs and a first-generation Iranian American who works inbusinessdevelopment at Pebble Tech, said that to be included on the list, a person had to have at least one Iranian parent. Many of the people the group picked for the list are first generation and rising stars in the tech community, he said.

Despite lobbying from some of the names on this list, the House and Senate passed a measure last week as part of the 2016 budget act that experts said would likely make it more difficult for people of Iranian descent or people who have been in Iran in the past five years to travel to Europe.

Ali Partovi, an investor in Dropbox, Airbnb and Facebook investor, and Code.org & LinkExchange cofounder, who lobbied aggressively against the measure, said it passed the Senate with what he called discriminatory language intact. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill.

The measure likely means people from Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria, their children, or those who have been there in the past five years, will need a visa to travel back-and-forth to Europe, according to the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans.

European ambassadors objected to the measure, saying "a blanket restriction on those who have visited Syria or Iraq, for example, would most likely only affect legitimate travel by businesspeople, journalists, humanitarian or medical workers while doing little to detect those who travel by more clandestine means overland."

Partovi called it McCarthyism in a post on TechCrunch, saying the bill codifed racist rhetoric into law. "The nefarious provisions of the bill are deeply obscured. For example, it refers to "nationals" of certain countries. Only by looking up the laws of those countries would you find out that in the case of Iran and Syria, nationality is passed down automatically from father to son and is essentially the same as national heritage," said Partovi by email.

He wasn't the only one speaking out. Khordestani, for instance, took to Twitter to protest the bill, tweeting: "Creating two classes of American passport holders is highly discriminatory and un-American." and linking to a petition against the bill.

I heard discussion of the bill last week in Cairo, among European investors who have traveled or were planning to travel to Iran. Nobody likes long lines at the end of a transcontinental airplane trip; but the bigger question seemed to be the extent to which the bill is a sign of things to come.

"Our liberties are being eroded this week," wrote Partovi in a blog on TechCrunch. "We all care for the security of the United States, and we all fear terrorism. If we allow this fear to make us forsake our ideals, the enemy has already won."

Then he quoted Edmund Burke:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Partovi said that he expects the lobby effort to continue. "People across Silicon Valley are only just becoming aware about this, and they're surprised and disappointed. Zoe Logfren, a Democrat who represents the 19th district, helped draft the bill, and Anna Eshoo, a Democrat representing California's 18th district, voted for it. Silicon Valley will be looking to their leadership to reverse this in the new year."

Logfren's office issued a statement saying she voted against the budget bill that included the visa measure because of a separate cybersecurity provision.

A business journalist for 20 years and a freelancer for more than 10 of that, I’ve written about tobacco farmers in Amish Country, immigrants in New York City and financiers all over the world. Right now, I'm writing about the business of guns.